improve

• emprove (obsolete)

From Anglo-Norman emprouwer, from Old French en- + prou (“profit”), from Vulgar Latin prode (“advantageous, profitable”).

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɹuːv/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːv

improve (third-person singular simple present improves, present participle improving, simple past and past participle improved)

1. (transitive) To make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).

   Painting the woodwork will improve this house.

   Buying more servers would improve performance.

   • 2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:

     Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.

2. (intransitive) To become better.

   I have improved since taking the tablets.

   The error messages have improved since the last version, when they were incomprehensible.

   • 1908, W B M Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 41:

     “My Continental prominence is improving,” I commented dryly. Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”

3. (obsolete) To disprove or make void; to refute.
   • 1528 October 12 (Gregorian calendar), William Tyndale, “ Of Order.”, in The Obediẽce of a Christen Man , : , →OCLC, folios xciij, recto – xciij, verso:

     One ſayth this and a nother that / but can not agre. Nether can any of them make ſo ſtronge a reaſon vvhich a nother can not improve.

4. (obsolete) To disapprove of; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure.
   • 1528 October 12 (Gregorian calendar), William Tyndale, “The .IIIJ. Senses of yͤ Scripture”, in The Obediẽce of a Christen Man , : , →OCLC, folio cxlix, recto:

     hen he reherſed his preachinge and his doynges vnto the hye Apoſtles / they coulde improve no thinge […]

   • , Homer, “Book X”, in Geo Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. , London: Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, , new edition, volume I, London: Charles Knight and Co., , 1843, →OCLC, page 218:

     You would improve his negligence, too oft to ease retir’d: […]

     The spelling has been modernized.

5. (dated) To use or employ to good purpose; to turn to profitable account.

   to improve one's time;  to improve his means

   • a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number). The Reward of Honouring God”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. , volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: A J Valpy, , published 1830–1831, →OCLC:

     We shall especially honour God, by discharging faithfully those offices which God hath entrusted us with: by improving diligently those talents which God hath committed to us

   • 1711 July 18 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “SATURDAY, July 7, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 111; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume II, New York, N.Y.: D Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 96:

     hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved […]

     The spelling has been modernized.

   • 1715, Isaac Watts, Against Idleness and Mischief:

     How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.

   • 1768, William Blackstone, “Of Judgment, and It’s Incidents”, in Commentaries on the Laws of England, book III (Of Private Wrongs), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 392:

     he court has alſo an opportunity, which it ſeldom fails to improve, […]

   • March 7, 1778, George Washington, letter

     True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion.

• (to make something better): ameliorate, better, batten, enhance; See also Thesaurus:improve

• (antonym(s) of “to make something worse”): deteriorate, worsen; See also Thesaurus:aggravate
• (antonym(s) of “to become worse”): deteriorate, worsen; See also Thesaurus:worsen

• "improve" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 160.